Ghost Soldiers and Wild Boys
by EthnicBucket
Summary: They say that the best of friendships can somehow surpass death. In other words, everyone is dead and Grantaire searches for that he's lost.
1. Prolouge - Rememberance

A/N: Wow so this is my very first fanfiction- Please don't eat me alive for this. I plan to update at least once every week, however these may be sporadic as I'm still a student with a rather gruelling schedule, so please be patient!

This chapter is very short- Being just a prologue and I couldn't think of a way to make it longer without it becoming tedious, and even then I think I've gone a little bit wild.  
In any case, I hope you can look past the length and enjoy!

_Hold my hand_  
_Ooh, baby, it's a long way down to the bottom of the river_  
_Hold my hand,_  
_Ooh, baby, it's a long way down, a long way down_

Grantaire remembered all of it.  
Every argument, every shared joke, every drink and every night gone hungry. Every song and every scream that he'd exchanged with every one of them.  
He remembered all of his friends- Boys he hadn't meant to know yet found himself fond of just the same. He may not have been close with them all, but it's difficult to remain around such a crowd without learning to love them all just a little bit. He had never been the softest sort, or the friendliest- Quite the opposite, because he was Grantaire, who mocked before he sympathized, who laughed before he cried.

Drank before he thought.

Still, he remembered each and every one of them.  
Combeferre, Courfeyrac, Jehan, Bahoral, Joly, Bossuet, Feuilly. Hell, even Enjolras; as much as the man had despised him, Grantaire had always admired, even respected him.

He remembered their joy, their pain, their smiles.

Every exchange, even the smallest flew before his eyes- from laughter to tears, from parties to rallies he remembered them all.  
Their shouts as they screamed out their need for change- Their will, and their souls. Their shouts as they fell on the battlefield, their screams for war and bloodshed that Grantaire, ever the reliable companion, had somehow slept through.

He remembered their lives.

He remembered their corpses.

He'd only seen a few of the bodies- When he'd stumbled upstairs and broken through the soldiers. Only a few, but he knew no-one else had survived. He knew but he still ran to look; a hopeful cynic, desperately wishing someone was left- Anyone, he'd settle for any of them, he just needed to know someone was left.  
He was right of course. It made the most sense in retrospect that it would be Enjolras who outlasted the lot of them, who faced down their enemies with his flag clutched in hand and those marble features contorted in a stubbornness that was, in itself, beautiful. Enjolras was a great man; as often as they fought, and as much torture as it would take to coax Grantaire into saying it aloud, he had always known that.

It was funny, as useless as he was he'd never given thought to running away; not when he still had les Amis. He had no doubt that his choice was the best one.

Every moment spent with the lot of them flashed before his eyes. Only his friends, as there was no life before them- No Mother coddling him in a rocking chair, no Father rumpling dark curls as the bullets ripped through him, shredding something in him he knew was vital but felt too detached to care about. This was oddly painless, he decided. Stubbing his toe had hurt worse than this- the metal passed through him as quickly and easily as butter, and he swore he could count them all as they came. Three, three in all; collected in the wall behind him, it was almost funny- he never really expected the red Enjolras had revered so highly to have been his own, spraying against the wall like the wings of Death.

He hadn't felt himself hit the ground, but he was there and a glance up showed him the last thing he would ever see. Enjolras; their hands clasped no longer- the darker man upon the floor before the blonde's feet, unable to see more than leather boots as the rest of the man dangled out the window. A show off even in death- couldn't just lie on the ground and die like everyone else.

He laughed bitterly, blood bubbling to his lips. How fitting, Grantaire thought, to die as he had lived- Below Enjolras, and distinctly less glorious.  
He coughed then, and the blood spilled out out onto the wood floors; he used to be an artist, he recalls faintly as black creeps up on his vision. He used to paint like this- Though he'd never been partial to red himself, he had just realized that it looked lovely amid the dust. Red and Black, filling his vision- His ears felt as if someone has stuffed them with cotton, stifling his brain and nose and making his body feel abruptly as though it were made of lead, yet somehow he still felt no pain.

He turned his head from the red and black, looking up at the National Guard. His expression was empty for a moment, and just as when he has shambled his way into the room, they were struck silent.  
Then he smiled a little; lips stained and eyes hazed, taking a deep breath that tasted of rot and the tell-tale iron of blood. "... _Vive la France_." He whispered,  
And before the troops could raise their muskets to shoot him again, René Grantaire was dead.


	2. Chapter the First - Discovery

_Like the Dead Sea _  
_You told me I was like the Dead Sea _  
_You'll never sink when you are with me _  
_Oh, Lord, I'm your Dead Sea_

Grantaire coughed loudly, gasping as his eyes flew open; Only dimly aware of his surrounding as they whirled around before he jerked upright. A stream of colourful curses followed- He tensed up for the pain that was sure to follow. It never did.

The Frenchman frowned, looking down at his body before his fingers wrapped around the fabric of his shirt and vest and pried it open, looking down in wonder.

His clothes were still very much bloodied- Dark, slightly rusted crimson stains that scattered around his chest indiscriminately. A stain over his pelvis, another over his stomach and last of all one that seeped through his shirt and vest, placed perfectly in the centre of where his heart beat frantically below the cloth.

His hands grasped at the cloth, eyes wide as he marveled over as to how this could be.  
There were no wounds. No welt, nor scar or scrape that even hinted that he was anything but whole- Even the puckered flesh that he'd attained at other points in his life were gone without the smallest trace.

Tentatively, his fingers dipped into one of the bullet holes in his shirt. His fingers came up dampened in still-slightly fresh blood, and yet his skin was as perfectly untouched as the day of his birth. No longer was he crusted with dirt and sweat and pile that he'd earned through Parisian life, no, his body was all smooth tan aside from his reddened fingers as far as he could tell. A hand run through his hair told him that it was cleaner, and far softer than he'd ever bothered to keep it before.

"What manner of vision is this?" He whispered to the silence, and as silence was named such for a reason, he received no answer.

Only when shifting led to his foot bumping up against a chair leg did he even bother to take in his surroundings. He was no longer at the barricade, and he wasn't sure if this brought him great relief or made it that much more painful.

Rather- he was in the middle of a field.

It was vast- Bigger than any field he'd ever seen, which granted was only two at the very most, but even then he knew that it must've been vast. It was filled with poppies for a great distance- Red poppies, he realized. Grass sprouting in the cracks between them and he could see the fringe of trees lining all sides of it; It was beautiful- it made his eyes water and his nose itch with the desire to sneeze, but wouldn't have been much cause for notice, he decided, if it weren't for the fact that it was littered with furniture of all things.

There were dressers, crumpled in places and cracked, bedframes that lay in shambles, bookshelves and wardrobes. Chairs, from rocking to over-stuffed reading, books and all manner of other things. They collected more solidly in the centre than from where Grantaire was, sprawled out on his bottom beside a small cluster of chairs and footstools.

The middle rose like a house, or a large building. It was impressive considering it was made out of what resembled scrapped furniture and absolutely nothing else. It was dark, standing in stark contrast to the red of the flowers. Towering and somehow imposing- It was solid, and didn't sway despite how precarious such a building should have been. No, it seemed far safer than it should have, and yet it somehow made him feel as if he should turn and walk away as swiftly as he could.

It looked distantly familiar, he realized, pushing upright on wobbly legs. He couldn't quite place it, but something about the furniture and the field struck him as very familliar, though surely he'd never been here before.

And so, doing as he always did, Grantaire ignored his every inclination towards self-preservation and made his way towards it.

He moved slowly, sluggishly through the field, poppies crushing underfoot as he made his way closer, blue eyes reflecting the red from them as he passed, fingers reaching out as if to touch a splintering wardrobe with the very tips, caressing it before he made his way down the stacked pile of furniture. The closer he got to the middle of the field, the higher they seemed to stack, until they were high above his head and eclipsing the sun above him.

Soon it wasn't only furniture, but boxes and stacks of wine barrels that supported the growing structure. Once or twice he swore he saw doors, all chipped and stained and sometimes broken into pieces as they were shoved up into the pile. He must've walked for a half hour, maybe longer, as he wandered his way though the maze that it was beginning to create.

Grantaire didn't give it much thought, however, until his fingers were pressed up against a pair of coffins.

It was only when he looked up and saw the window that rested just above them that he realized what this was. Nestled into them like it was a room on its own; he could see the inside of that familiar space, he could see the wooden walls; so dark when it wasn't lit by lamp or sunlight. Perhaps even that wasn't enough cause for alarm up until he saw the blood, long dried, splashed out over the windowsill as if someone had spilled it from a cup on purpose, letting it drip from the windowsill where it now seeped in; just as dry as that which was on Grantaire's shirt, yet the fact that it was even there disturbed him so deeply that it was startling in its strength.

He gulped, his eyes wide.

The barricade.

It was all so surreal that Grantaire did the only logical thing one could do when they are in a state of emotional and mental warfare.

He threw up all over the pile of wooden rubbish.

He retched until he trembled and his stomach was empty, staring down at his sick in shock; his throat aflame and his mind full of questions. So many questions that he couldn't even fully form them himself.  
His first thought was, 'If only it had been this big back in Paris', his second left tears in his eyes and a lump in his throat.

Where were the others?

And for the first time since his birth, wherafter Grantaire had insisted his tear ducts had been welded shut, he buried his face in his hands  
And he cried.

_Whoa, I'm like the Dead Sea_  
_The nicest words you ever said to me_  
_Honey can't you see_  
_I was born to be, be your Dead Sea_


End file.
